


you’ve got a pocket full of reasons

by defcontwo



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:45:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's always wanted it. She just didn't want it so soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you’ve got a pocket full of reasons

She's always wanted it. 

Every time she looked ahead, every time she looked to the future, she saw this. She thought of this. She felt it, knew it in her bones, that there was no other path for her. 

She just didn't want it so soon. 

She didn't want it like this. 

\--

A heavy hand falls on her shoulder. Cass looks up. Dick is staring ahead, looking as if he's about a thousand miles away. 

"Look, uh," Dick starts, licking his cracked lips. His voice is hoarse -- he's been crying. Well. They all have. "I know he expected you to have it. But if you're not -- if you're not ready for it or if it's too much, I. I don't think he expected to go so soon, you know? I think he wanted you to have more time." 

Cass shakes her head firmly. If there's one thing she's sure of, it's this. "No. I want to do this, Dick. Please. Please let me do this."

The hand on her shoulder relaxes, becomes more affectionate as it draws her to the back of his chest, his other arm looping around in an awkward hug. He kisses the top of her head and Cass leans into it. Human to human contact. She understands this. 

"Okay, little sister. You got it." 

\--

She finds him on the roof of his house, knees drawn up to his chest. Waiting for her. He knew she was coming. 

Of course he did. 

Cass climbs up to meet him, swinging herself up and over the eaves and into the platform tucked away next to his bedroom window. She's in civilian gear for this -- faded black jeans with worn in holes at the knees and a Haley's Circus t-shirt that she borrowed from Dick, her Chuck Taylors barely getting the grip she needs to stay in place. 

She couldn't be in uniform. Not for him. He'll be hurting enough already. 

"Hey, Cass," Tim says, giving her a weak smile. It's odd seeing him here. It's odd seeing him retired. He doesn't look ...less; somehow, she thought he might. He looks contained, like all of the bits of him that were Robin are bursting at the seams and there's no room left for anything else. 

This won't last but she doesn't think he knows it yet. 

"Any advice?" Cass asks, knocking her shoulder against his. Tim darts her a quick smile, knocks back. She doesn't explain. He'll have already put it together. 

"You came to the wrong guy, Cass. I never wanted that gig." 

"I know," Cass says, giving him a pointed look. "That's why I'm asking." 

"All right, okay," Tim says, tugging at the overhanging sleeves of his sweatshirt. It's too long for him, the sweatshirt several sizes too big, like it was meant for someone much larger than him. Bruce, maybe, or Dick. 

"Here's my advice. If Steph thinks you're being a jerk, you're probably being a jerk. Listen to her." 

_That's what Robin is for._ He doesn't say it but she hears it anyway. 

"Voice of experience?" Cass teases. 

Tim huffs a laugh. "Yeah, definitely. Ask and she'll tell you all about it." 

"I should get going," Cass says. Alfred is waiting for her, designs for her new suit scattered across his worktable. No time like the present when crime doesn't cut you a break for mourning. 

She stands, brushes off her knees and makes to jump down. 

"Wait," Tim calls out and Cass pauses, one foot forward on the edge of the roof. "Good luck...Batman." 

It's the first time someone says it. And despite everything -- despite Dick's bright, red-rimmed eyes and Alfred's silences, despite the cavern of her own grief that she feels could swallow her whole -- it feels good. 

"You know...there is always a place for you with us. If you want it." 

Tim nods sharply, movements jerky and uncertain. His eyes are watering. It strikes her how badly he needed to hear someone say that. "Yeah, maybe when hell freezes over." 

There's a voice from within. His dad is calling him down for dinner. 

Cass shrugs. "Maybe sooner." 

She leaps off the roof. 

\-- 

"You ready, Batman?" Robin calls out. There's a stubborn tilt to her chin, hands on her hips. Everything about her is bright; green and red and yellow and all of it with her hair and fire-red lipstick to match. 

But the lipstick doesn't cover the uncertain set to her lips, the flush high in her cheeks. She looks like she's expecting to get sent home. She looks like she's gearing up for a fight. 

It was...difficult, between her and Bruce. They argued all of the time, loud screaming matches that echoed throughout the Cave, and he tried to fire her at least three or four times but she kept coming back, refusing to take it. 

And now he's gone. The second father figure to come up wanting and then cut out on her before she got the chance to deal with it. Cass thinks maybe Steph will never forgive him for that.

"Should we start out easy, Robin?" Cass asks. 

Cass is rewarded with an upturn of the lips, cheeks dimpling. Steph cocks a hip, gives her some of that good old fashioned Spoiler attitude that Cass now recognizes as equal parts flirtation and performative misdirection. "Now where's the fun in that, Batman?" 

"Good," Cass says, picking up the fob and tossing it to Steph, who catches it. "You get to drive." 

Steph jumps up into the air, cape flaring out behind her and lets out a victory yelp that careens around the high stone ceilings. 

"Now that's what I'm talking about, Batman." 

\-- 

It's different now, working with Steph. Batgirl and Spoiler are skeletons that they've mostly left behind, echoes that emerge every once in a while but for the most part, can't have a place in who they are now. 

The question that haunts her, turning it over and over again in her mind until her head aches with it, is if there will be another Batgirl. It hurts, sharp and sure, to picture someone else taking up that costume. 

But at the same time -- she does not want it to disappear. Gotham needs a Batgirl.

Steph is different too, now. She is sharper, more aware. Or maybe she always was this sharp, maybe she always did have the capacity to be this good. The girl who trained so hard and so fast she made herself sick with it and came right back for more. 

No. Steph has always been this sharp. Cass is just seeing it differently now. Seeing it through Batman's eyes. She sees the way Robin follows quickly behind, fleet-footed and eyes up top and always ready to have Batman's back. 

Not a sidekick, more than a friend -- a partner. 

Robin fills her thoughts more than she should. Robin at her back, Robin a flush high in her cheeks as she punches the Penguin in the jaw, Robin bright and razor-sharp and _furious_ as she takes down a would-be rapist -- Robin, always Robin, but it's not the costume, not really. 

It was always going to be Steph. Spoiler, Robin, civilian. 

Cass just wasn't ready yet. 

She is now. 

\-- 

She doesn't know who kissed who first -- it was a meeting in the middle, maybe, unstoppable force meets immovable object, an inevitable clashing of teeth and tongue and blood, Robin's hands steadying her at the waist, holding her in place before pushing her into the passenger side of the Batmobile and then climbing in after her, slamming the door firmly shut behind her as she climbs into Cass's lap. 

It is overwhelming, a sensory overload, her hands tangled in Steph's blonde hair, Steph in her lap, Steph grinding down and the friction of it all, but -- human to human contact. She understands this. 

She still has the cowl on. Neither of them can be bothered to remove it. 

"So the rumors are true after all," Steph gasps out, shifting up to undo the trappings on her uniform and pull down her tights, bracing her arms above Cass's head. 

"What rumors?" 

Steph laughs, low and close. "Nothing, never mind. Don't want to ruin the mood, oh man, fuck these tights, I'm going to kill Tim, these are awful." 

"Scaly greens more your style?" Cass teases, flirtation written into the uptick of her mouth and she doesn't know when this became a language she understands but with Steph, she is fluent, as easy as breathing. 

"Yep," Steph chirps. "Easy access." Cass tugs off her gauntlets, tossing them into the backseat before leaning down and helping Steph out of her tights, throwing them over into the driver's seat. 

"I -- I don't know..." 

"Do you...do you want to, you don't have to," Steph says, voice gone low and serious. "We don't have to do anything here, Cass." 

Cass rocks her hips up and Steph groans, dropping her head onto Cass's shoulder. "No, I want to. I just...need guidance." 

"Have you done this by yourself?"

"I...yes." 

Steph chuckles. "Don't be embarrassed. Similar concept. I have every faith in you, Batman." 

Cass brushes tentative fingers across Steph's folds and encouraged by Steph's breathy hiss, seeks out the nub she's looking for, rubbing her thumb over it in concentric circles, drawing a keening whine out of Steph before she draws Cass into a sloppy kiss. Steph's breath is coming in stuttered gasps but it is muted through the cowl and the effect of it is strange, makes Steph seem so far away when she couldn't be closer, hot and wet around Cass's fingers and swearing up a storm, a litany of "fuck" and "shit, yes, _there_." But Cass doesn't need the words to guide her, goes by the way Steph's eyes flutter, the way the muscles in her neck work when Cass hits it just right and they could be there seconds or minutes or hours and it wouldn't matter because Cass doesn't think she could ever tire of this, and then Steph comes, yelling her name harsh and loud in her ear before slumping forward, sated and exhausted. 

"You're going to have to give me a few minutes to get my legs working before I can drive this thing home." 

"We're going home?" 

Steph cocks an eyebrow. "We have to get that suit off you, don't we?" 

"Oh," Cass says, a smile spreading across her face. "You know this car has an autopilot, right?" 

\-- 

It's well into the afternoon when they stumble down into the kitchen, Steph in borrowed clothes, bodies aching and smiles plastered across their faces that just won't fade away. 

Dick takes one look at them and promptly chokes on his cereal. Alfred merely raises an eyebrow, already reaching for the coffee pot. 

"Coffee and breakfast, Miss Cassandra? Miss Stephanie?" 

"Sure, Alf," Steph says, hopping up onto a kitchen stool. "How do you feel about waffles, Alf?" 

"I've already prepared the batter, Miss Stephanie." 

"See, Alfred, now that's why you're my favorite," Steph says, pointing a finger in Alfred's direction. The collar of her borrowed shirt slips, revealing a bruise just below the collar bone and Cass smirks to herself, thinks _I put that there_. 

"A successful night for Batman and Robin, then?" Alfred asks, pouring Steph a cup of coffee before reaching for the teapot for Cass. 

Steph grins at her over the top of her coffee mug, something sly and promising lurking in her gaze. 

"Always."


End file.
